


The first thing

by anneweaver



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneweaver/pseuds/anneweaver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some moments in Fitz and Simmons' relationship, told in cups of coffee and tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The first thing

The first time Jemma sees him, he’s holding three textbooks and a cup of coffee.

She doesn't think much of the coffee —it’s not necessarily a strange occurrence in college—, but she does notice that some of the textbooks he's holding and the ones currently placed on top of her table, right beside her own cup of tea, are the same. But it might be a coincidence, just like the fact that he almost looks too young to be in college, like herself, is, and she doesn’t do anything about it.

A few weeks pass before they speak for the first time; he walks to her (holding the same three textbooks from before and another identical cup of coffee) and hesitantly asks "You're in my Neurobiology class, aren't you?"

There's no stopping it from that point on.

At the beginning it's a little strange. There's that hint of hesitancy and awkwardness that every relationship has at the beginning but overall it’s easy and, if they’re both being honest, it’s the first time either of them has had a friendship that feels so real and effortless. They're both younger than average and _a lot_ brighter than average, and they understand each other in a way nobody else seems to do. If nothing else, it’s refreshing.

Once they get to know each other better, they fall into a comfortable routine, which starts every morning when they meet before class to get a drink and study for a while or just talk. They only have two classes together, since they’re majoring in different things, but it doesn’t stop them from meeting, every morning, no matter what their first class of the day is, to get their drink. Leo always drinks coffee, Jemma always gets tea, and somehow it becomes their thing. Their first of many things.

Jemma doesn’t mean to, but she learns Leo’s multiple coffee orders. She learns his favorite kind of coffee is espresso and he drinks it every morning and every night, but he never has lunch without latte, and he likes cappuccino during weekends. Leo doesn’t mean to, but he learns Jemma never has coffee, no matter how hard the night. She only ever has green tea with two lumps of sugar, and milk if she’s feeling very, very stressed (he’s only seen her drink tea with milk once, the night before a final she felt underprepared for, and it was one of the scariest nights of his entire life).

Leo asks her once why he’s never seen her drinking coffee, and she answers softly, her eyes fixed on her textbook, “My grandma used to drink green tea all the time. Makes me feel like home.” And then, just for good measure, she lifts her gaze, smirks and says “and coffee tastes odd” and laughs at the faux hurt that flickers across Leo’s face and the quiet gasp he lets out.

"That's because you, my friend, haven't tried the right kind of coffee yet." He remarks, in a low-pitched tone that makes her give another little laugh. She closes the textbook with a loud thump and looks at him again, raising her eyebrows.

"Oh, really?” She says, a hint of teasing in her voice. “I'd ask you to enlighten me, but I’m sure you're gonna do it either way."

"Ah, you know me so well." He says, absentmindedly, probably coming up with ways of getting her to try coffee already, but her hands freeze, for a moment, on her cup of tea.

It’s not a particularly odd sentence, there’s nothing strange in the way he says it. And it’s true, she knows it is, they’ve known each other for almost six months now and yet, most of the time, it feels like this guy she met on one of her classes — _he’s not even majoring in the same thing she is, for God’s sake_ — made his way into her life all of a sudden and learned her almost perfectly. And it wasn’t just him, she knew him almost like the back of her hand: what he liked, what he didn’t, what made him tick, what kind of blackmailing strategies would work on him, his middle name, even some of his deepest fears... but hearing him acknowledge it, knowing he’s aware of _that_ , makes it more real. Makes it okay. And it’s comforting.

She wonders, briefly, if this is what it feels like to have a best friend, but she has the feeling the answer’s yes.

A little smile tugs at her lips, the warmth returns quickly to her hands, and she takes a sip of her tea before answering "I do, indeed."

-//-

The first time they really fight, an honest-to-God yelling match, Jemma dumps the contents of her cup of tea over Leo’s head. It’s only about three hours later, when she’s sitting on the floor and staring intently at the cracks in the ceiling of her dorm room, that she thinks that _might_ have been a tad childish.

They bicker all the time over petty stuff. Who pays for their morning drinks, who waits for whom after class, whether Leo really needs to carry Jemma’s bag or not —he usually wins this one and ends up carrying her bag all the way to her dorm—, but this time, it wasn’t something petty they were arguing about.

Leo got an offer. A life-changing offer.

Honestly, she can’t blame him for accepting it. If S.H.I.E.L.D wants to recruit you —and she recalls Leo telling her, face flushed in excitement, that they wanted him developing weapons for the SciOps unit “as soon as possible”—, only a fool would say no. You don’t say no to S.H.I.E.L.D.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Jemma is proud of him, she really is, but… he has to leave in a few weeks for the Academy. Alone, of course.

These super secret agents wearing fancy suits managed to take her best friend away from her.

It’s not that she can’t function on her own, because she’s done perfectly fine alone most of her life. But then she met him, and for the past two years and a half she’s had him by her side, through all-nighters and research groups and the two times she got ill enough to miss class, through parties and get-togethers and holidays, through finals week and tests and through every single morning and afternoon and evening with their usual coffee and tea. That man is the half of her she didn’t know she wanted to have until she had it.

It’s not that she can’t function on her own, it’s that she doesn’t _want_ to.

So when he knocks at her dorm door before barging in like he always does, and casually mentions he just got his flight information and he’s leaving in ten days… she entirely loses her temper.

There’s not much Jemma can actually remember about the fight. She knows she calls him a self-centered idiot, and he says she’s the most selfish human being he’s ever met, and there’s some shouting after and Leo accuses her of being jealous because he got his breakthrough before her, and then she dumps the whole cup of tea over his head and snorts “how do you like that breakthrough?”

Right after Leo leaves, she sits cross-legged on the floor and starts shaking.

A while after the fight (Jemma believes it’s been three and a half hours, but who’s counting), there’s a warning knock on her door and Leo walks in, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

He kneels on the floor in front of her and offers her the cup of tea, says “We should really talk about this before I leave” and, instead of offering a straight answer, she smiles tearfully and accepts the cup of tea before saying “I dumped my tea on your head and you’re bringing me more?”

He deadpans “I must be really fond of you,” gives her a warm smile and kisses her in the forehead.

And, just like that, Jemma knows there’s no way these agents wearing fancy suits are ever going to take her best friend away from her. Physically, they might, but he’s hers, and she’s his, and no super secret organization can ever change that.

They toast, with their coffee and tea, to Leo’s impending success and to their friendship.

(A few days later, two men wearing fancy suits approach Jemma as she’s walking out of class. They tell her S.H.I.E.L.D has noticed her outstanding research on the Biochemistry field and would like to offer her a spot on the weapon development branch of the Science Operations Unit, as soon as possible. They actually use the words “it would be an honor for S.H.I.E.L.D to have such a brilliant biochemist joining our ranks” and, as flattered as she is, she was sold way before they had even offered her the spot.

She doesn’t even pretend to think about the offer.)

-//-

 

The first time they get truly drunk, it’s the day they graduate from the Academy. The ironic thing is, they don’t even _go_ to their own graduation party.

They have all the intention to go, really, but the invitation said they had to wear formal attire and they tried, they really tried... and then Jemma walks out of her room wearing a long pink dress and her hair is braided in a bun around her head, and Leo is actually wearing a very elegant suit with a bowtie and his hair is gelled down, and the moment they look at each other they can’t help but burst into laughter.

“You look ridiculous, oh my God.” Jemma snorts, and then points at his bowtie. “Who gave you that?”

“It came with the suit.” Leo says, in between little gasps. “What did you even do to your hair?” They breathe for a moment, look at each other straight in the eye, and burst into laughter again. And, just like that, they know they’re not going anywhere.

Instead, they sit on the floor of their living room with a cocktail shaker —a gift from Leo’s older brother—, mixing every kind of alcohol they could find in their cabinets with coffee and tea and playing drinking games. After all, they were official S.H.I.E.L.D agents now, that kind of behavior wouldn’t be excused any longer, and they had to take advantage of that.

Leo manages to get Jemma to try vodka and coffee, which she drinks all in one gulp before making a scrunchy face. In return, he drinks a weird mixture of tequila, wine and tea, and he doesn’t remember much from that moment on. By 1am, Jemma’s hair is all loose and messy again and she’s wearing Leo’s bowtie, while he lost the suit jacket about two hours ago, and they’re both sprawled all over their living room floor, passed out.

(Their supervising officer finds them in that position the next day, and decides not to report that incident. She leaves them a note that says “Consider this my graduation present for you.”)

-//-

When they get offered a position in Agent Coulson’s team, it happens with Maria Hill taking them out for a drink. That is definitely a first.

She barges into their lab when they’re in the middle of testing their new paralyzing gun and says “Take your gloves off, we’re gonna get a drink.” They don’t even _dare_ to question it.

Jemma orders a soy latte. Leo’s pretty sure she doesn’t even know what a soy latte tastes like, but he doesn’t question it. He’s thinking about ordering a tea himself, actually, and he knows Jemma ordering a coffee means she’s really scared because _he is too_. After all, it’s not every day that Maria Hill invites you for drinks.

Their fears end up being unfounded, however, since Agent Hill doesn’t even bother with small talk before asking “Do you know who Phil Coulson is?”

Of course they know.

(They have their second full blown fight after this, debating whether they really should go into the field without passing their field assessments or not. They decide to go anyway, and, thankfully, nobody ends up dripping tea from their hair.)

-//-

The whole team picks up on their usual morning routine, but Skye is the first one who calls them out on it.

It’s been so long since they had stopped questioning it (around one week after they started talking, actually) that Skye sitting next to them while they’re having their drinks and asking them “so this is like, a thing for you two, huh?” catches them off guard. So much that Jemma just faintly smiles at her but doesn’t say anything, and Leo doesn’t move his gaze from the cup of coffee he’s holding.

They don’t talk about it until almost midnight when Jemma is falling asleep on top of the lab table and Leo taps softly at her shoulder and asks “do you want me to bring you some tea?”

She bolts awake at that and shakes her head, says “No, I’m alright” and then takes a deep breath. Leo raises an eyebrow at her.

“Are you okay?” He asks as Jemma says “do you think this is really a thing for us?” and, okay, that was not what he was expecting to hear. He sighs.

“Does that bother you?” He asks. Jemma smiles.

“No, not really. I just never paid any attention to the fact that we have things.” She answers. “Aside from the obvious-”

“Which is being referred to like we’re the same person?”

“Yes, but what I’m asking is, how many things do we have that we’re not even aware of?” She asks. That does make Leo stop and think.

Okay, so they’ve been doing this morning drink thing for seven years now, and people have been referring to them as “Fitzsimmons” since their third week at the Academy where they refused to partner up with other people aside from each other at labs. They also speak at the same time most of the time or finish each other sentences, tend to move around each other and, sometimes when they’re talking, they tend to tune out the rest of the people around the room. They tend to wear matching colors or patterns, they usually order the same things when they’re out for food, they tend to gravitate towards each other’s bunks on hard or cold nights (to the point where the team doesn’t find it strange at all to find them sleeping on the same bed), they’ve established a movie night from their college days (which they’ve only missed once because they weren’t in the same city) and-

So they have a lot of things. That’s not news.

That doesn’t stop Leo from looking at Jemma and feeling a really strong surge of emotion in the form of warmth spreading across his chest. That girl right there is truly his other half.

He smiles at her fondly and says “We could stay and write a list of our things but I would like to actually get some sleep tonight” and manages to get a little laugh from her.

The next morning, when Skye asks them again if that morning drink is a thing for them, Jemma says “yeah, I guess it is” and Leo winks at Jemma from the seat across the table. Skye laughs, disbelievingly, and shakes her head.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Agents of SHIELD Christmas Fic Exchange. Uh... that's it.


End file.
